Highlights • Female and male soccer players showed comparable tactical creativity. • Female soccer players showed higher functional connectivity during the soccer task. • Female and male soccer players seem to use different neurocognitive strategies. Abstract Previous research has indicated that in several domains, women and men may use different cognitive processes along with different neurophysiological activation to achieve similar behavioral performance. The present study extended this line of research to the novel field of soccer playing. In female and male active soccer players, we investigated patterns of brain activation and functional connectivity of brain networks during imagination of creative soccer moves, using EEG methods that are well established in creativity research. Participants were presented with scenarios taken from real soccer games. Female and male soccer players showed comparable creative performance in their imagined moves to score a goal, which was rated by top qualified experts (UEFA A licensed soccer coaches). Notwithstanding, they differed with respect to their brain activation and functional connectivity of brain networks. While men exhibited relatively higher parietal/occipital task-related EEG alpha power, women showed significantly higher within-hemisphere functional coupling in the upper alpha band. The findings add important new evidence to the field of cognitive gender research in an applied, sports-related domain of creative cognition.
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